The Numberless Leaves: The Great ReImaging
by DurWi
Summary: It is 1001 Earth years since Jake Sully passed through the Eye of Eywa. A Na'vi scholar of ancient Human languages , living on Mars, recounts the story and history of those 1001 years and how Human's and Na'vi together remade themselves
1. Chapter 1 By way of Introduction

**This is my first fan fiction. There is something about Avatar that makes me want to explore how both Human's and Na'vi will evolve over the centuries to come. I want both the worlds of Pandora and Earth to come through the troubles that will occur and to be changed for the better but to maintain their essence. I dream that both peoples achieve happiness in their joint destiny. So 1001 Earth years after the events of Avatar a Na'vi scholar of ancient human languages begins to recount the stories of how the Na'vi and Humans became what they have become, solely for his own pleasure (after all every Na'vi and Human child knows these songs, stories and dances), in the old and now nearly forgotten 'old English of the nineteenth to twenty-third Earth centuries". Like many scholars, he likes to ramble and perhaps is a bit of a pedant who talks about himself as much as his subject but hopefully he tells a few good stories. **

**I welcome your reviews.**

**I most certainly do not own Avatar but certainly am very thankful that James Cameron created such a wonderful playground for our imagination, one where I can attach my dreams and see my wishes fulfilled.**

* * *

The 24th of August 3155, one thousand Earth years and a year since Jake Sully passed through Ewya's eye and over 800 years since the end of the fourth Pandorian-Earth war and I, Yawnefpieywa, a Na'vi of Mars, write this essay in the old English of the nineteenth to twenty-third Earth centuries to commemorate all that has happened; to remember and honor the pain and the love, and to give thanks to Ewya and to Gaia, and to all the Great Guides, the Tifyawìntxutxan, our great parents, perhaps best called using the old English 'the gods' or great spirits, on all Worlds that we have had the honor of visiting and Seeing. I give thanks for the teachings that Humans have given us Na'vi and for the honor to our people for being able to join Humans in the Great Imaging.

I write this conceit as if I truly were writing to a human reader from those times where Humans only dreamed of true Sight and the Na'vi could not yet understand why any being would be so alone that they would need to know 'the how, the what, or the why' with such passion that they could destroy themselves, their whole world and those of others in that so often unconscious quest.

Among many things, for what sane Human or Na'vi is defined solely by their avocation or their trade, I am what a long dead human 20th century reader would call a philologist, in the newer Na'vi an 'unillì'utìyawnyu', a 'lover of the dream words'. For I truly love those ancient writings and the words of Earth from times where it was the imagination of writers such as Tolkien, Gillis, Singer, Edison, Goethe, Steiner, Yeats, and Blake or artists such as Picasso, Chagall, Kirby, Spielberg, Lennon, Wagner, Lucas or Wells, that prefigured what would happen to both Human and Na'vi during our peoples mutual 'great troubles' caused by our species first meeting. These are creators of works that gave that food to the human mind that allowed your bodies and souls to survive the times that were to come. For if you could not See, you wished that you could and that wish lead to the Great Re-Imaging, to the rediscovery of your human deeps, and the remaking of both Man and Na'vi.

Perhaps I write this to better understand and imagine that time that I love by using these old words from a species not my own, for in this way I can align my mind with that time and by the resonance that underlies how all minds communicate, actually See that past and understand and increase my love for those words, and for all life and thus to better understand my own time, my own words and my own soul. Or perhaps I just want to emulate your Tolkien who it is said wrote in long dead languages and created his own also to understand and to express this same love of both words and Man. Or maybe it is only that this conceit allows me to write for a non-existent audience, who will never complain, a pedantic scholar's screed, giving facts and story sung and danced by every Na'vi 'eveng or Human child, a dry and soulless form without those newer words that have been forged and honed through the wonders of this last millennium. At least this conceit frees me to record only what is of interest to me and to do so in any order and any style, for I teach nothing that you do not know already and at most 200,000 on the Six Systems can even read this ancient form and I fear I could count on the fingers of one of my hands the friends who truly would care to.

I was born on Mars, in the Pandora-formed lands and seas near Mons Olympus. We Na'vi though we visit Earth prefer not to live there, for without unobtainium based suspensor belts the gravity is too great, and though our bones support us, we have little pleasure or joy in living in the Earth lands. A dead technology, such as the suspensor belts, may be useful to visit homes of human friends but the lack of life in such methods still pains us for it alienates us from the spirit of Gaia and Earth's lands and seas. The air of Earth, though not fatal or even particularly harmful to the Na'vi lung, is dry, thin and without a certain tang that tells us that this land could be our home. Thus though we love the beauty of your Earth reformed and are pleased to visit, we rarely live on Earth.

Ah, Mars, three and one-half centuries of patient search and meditation by both Humans and Na'vi just to find a way to make the link with the spirit mind and soul of this seemingly simpler world to gain both permission and cooperation with that tifyawìntxutxan, the spirit/mind of this planet, to make the changes needed so that we Na'vi could truly live here. For if finding a life mate takes long courtship so that both partners may See and become a pair, one that will change each other permanently for the better, how much more so to make tsaheylu between an entire sentient people and an even more sentient if still dreaming planet or moon. It was only 210 Earth years ago that the first Irkan flew from the crags of Mons Olympus and my great great grandmother, Naytiri (yes that name remains a common woman's name among both Na'vi and Human, just as Jakesully has long been a favorite for the Na'vi tutan and Jake for Human men) was the first Na'vi born on Mars. Tolkien described the care and patience, if not the technique of planiforming well when he had Gimli say about the dwarvish transformation of the Glittering Caves . . ."With cautious skill, tap by tap -- a small chip of rock and no more, perhaps, in a whole anxious day -- so we would work, and as the years went by, we should open up new ways, and display far chambers that are still dark, glimpsed only as a void beyond fissures in the rock.". Making Mars a home is a work of art and a love gift to ourselves and to the one we Martian Na'vi know as Tsamsirolyututu, the Singing Warrior Woman, who is tifyawìntxutxan of Mars. To have changed Mars without her love would have literally have been rape, for although we may have desired this changed world, it was Tsamsirolyututu who bore this conception in the belly of her mind and thus became our foster mother.


	2. Chapter 2 The monkey, she got drunk

**Our Narrator continues his introduction – describing quite a bender with a visiting human friend and fellow scholar from Earth. While they are drunk and irritated with each other in way of drunken friends of any species, we get to hear a plastered 3.3 meter tall male blue bipedal cat who speaks at least 16 extinct languages, and his 'pale red haired naked ape' female friend argue about some of the ways that Human and Na'vi cultures have changed over the last millennium, how one should announce your love for your spouse to the world, and a question about how a Biblical Hebrew word got into the Na'vi language. Much of this will expand as this story grows in later chapters. **

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Chapter 2 --- "The Monkey She Got Drunk"

My human friends often get rather irritated when I praise my life-mate Ma'ot with poetic abandon. "I love my husband too but can't you just say, "'I really See Ma'ot' or something short and sweet and Na'vi, instead of spending 45 minutes singing, out of tune and with broken meter too, in the Na'vi of Jakesully's time, 22nd Century American, and 19th Century Meiji Japanese haiku about her spots and the pleasing shape of her tail after you have a drink or four. Great Goddess, I am in tsaheylu si with my husband but I don't caterwaul about Steven for several lunar months every time a Na'vi friend visits. Gawds, even your irkan must be bored with this by now, have you asked him" laughed Linda O'Hara over diner the night before last.

"Ah, I think you're just jealous of Ma'ot and my tzitzits, our queues – you poor little naked monkeys have to work so hard at tsaheylu and that work distracts you from really showing true love. Having received tsahelu as gift of Eywa gives us Na'vi time for only truly _important_ speech. And anyway you humans are so promiscuous in your melding– you always attempt tsahelu anything that passes near, with an ant hill perhaps, that red rock you stubbed your toe on, or a water tank as readily as with an irkan or your life's love. No wonder you don't sing Steven's praise nearly enough. I think if you Humans did have our organ you would all have gone blind centuries ago", as I snarled, then immediately laughed and poured Linda another Mars'garita. "Yeah", as she stood up to her full 1 meter and 96, shaking her long red hair and moved closer, getting her eyes just above mine (as I was still sitting) looked down and said , "AND if we didn't commune with red rocks and maybe find the life in a gas tank or two you would still be having to wear those upsideasium vests when visiting Earth as our frrtue [Na'vi - guests] in this solar system, being fed caribou and aurouch steaks by us like it was 20th century '_Meow Mix'_ rather then being 'home on the range' here on Mars prowling on your pali, playing pasket'pall in you trees and sky and being in love with Tsamsirolyututu as much as with your main squeezes." – I let my ears and tail droop with emphasis for not only was I truly sorry for what I had said for she was correct but I was in that syrupy maudlin way of a guilty drunk of either of our species. So I stood up and bowed gently but deeply to her and said "Linda I am truly sorry". So she said, "Apology accepted, Yawnef, . . . but don't forget it was us 'Naked Monkeys' who spoke to Tsamsirolyututu first and first Heard her, and _Ariana _was her Common Speech human name well before Tsamsirolyututu was in Na'vi and she_ is_ _our mother here_ _too_. So you had frigging better be thankful for a 'a certain Human propensity toward a certain spiritual promiscuity . . . ' or I'll make you eat from that bag of '_Tender Vitals'_ we found in that grocery store dig in Dur Ango Col." Linda was still in the belligerent and proud phase of inebriation, but we both laughed as she poured me another mars'garita.

Linda harvests maple sap, lichen and the spotted mushroom, herds the caribou and hunts the walrus with her family by the Great Bay of Philly on the east coast of North America on the edge of the Great Eastern Rift. She is also the expert on 20th and early 21st century graphic literature, the comics. Her visit to Mars was prompted by the recent discovery of a nearly complete copy of volume II of Samulson's _History of the Marvel Universe, _and a nearly complete collection (in mylar bags no less) of _Strike Force Morituri, _the _Black Flame Special _and _Buffy Season 10_ found at a dig of a 21st century village in the volcanic wastes around the former West Chester. "The most significant find of English early 21st century literature since one half the lost volume of C. Tolkien's _Morgoth's Ring _was discovered in a landfill. Thank all the gods and few who probably don't exist for 20th Century Landfills! The definitive translation made James Gold's reputation. But what a 'fan boy' the original owner of the West Chester find must have been. And thank Eywa, Gaia, and the protector of the walrus, and the fairies at the bottom of my garden for mylar bags, and he owned an X-box and it still works too!" Linda exclaimed, while jumping up and nearly falling from the burl she was resting on in my branch on our clans tree. "Hey Fan Girl, when you have a drink, or four, you start that monkey chatter about your true loves too and you can't even hold your liquor either." I responded as I calmly caught her arm before she fell on her face.

Well I do wax poetic about my Ma'ot and will gladly sing the praises of her spots, her face, tail and eyes, and any other part of her body, mind, soul and spirit, her total perfection, in any of 16 dead languages and few that haven't been born yet given any opportunity (and certainly when given a few drinks). Especially so when she commences a voyage to the stars and we are separated for so long.

Remember please, Ma'ot while bound unto the stars,

my love exceeds the light from all the orbs.

Yawnefpieywa he waits for you, our bond

far stronger than mere gravity.

How we will laugh on your return.

Eywa'eveng born, she is the 'Go-captain' of the Live-Vessel _Omati s'ampta, The Blue Flute, _and is bound for life, far tighter than I am to my Irkan, to her living ship, and to the very paths between the stars; for she is that ship's tsahìk fya'oä, 'the path's interpreter', gone for years at a time and coming back with wonders, her face and mind does shine with the deeps of space and light of all the galaxies whenever we meet upon her return.

The next morning is a beauty. A few thunderheads in the sky and Mons Olympus highest peaks red in the distance with the rising Sun, several atokirina' drifting lazily by, minding their business.

Both Linda and I more than slightly hungover as we begin to hold a hopefully more sober and productive discussion of our mutual arts of philology and ancient literary history and the find she came to Mars to speak about. "Yawnef", (I trust you have all guessed this is my nickname), "why is it that the Human Common Speech, and the now most common word in Na'vi, for the Na'vi neural queue is 'Tzitzit' from the Biblical Hebrew."

"Linda, are you really asking for one of my etymological stories? I am honored.", as my tail and ears rise to match my more than ironic and amused tone of voice. But first I want to know about the West Chester finds"

**The next chapter will explore the primary schools of interpreting Human literature of the 19****th**** to 22****nd**** Earth centuries, where Linda and Yawnef argue whether those texts prove that Human's were hopeless ****skxawng, or not, and we hear a Na'vi tell a story about a rabbi.**


	3. Chapter 3 A Rabbi, Nu? Why Not a Duck?

Chapter 3 – A Rabbi, why not a duck?

"Yahnef, we could go for a ride and discuss the West Chester discoveries and I am sure you will be so happy to explain 'how the Na'vi got their Tzitzit'. I understand that _a-__äie torukspxam_, are bountiful south of here. Bringing Steven back a selection of Pandorian vision mushrooms would be a welcome surprise. A mornings ride, a mushroom search and hunt, you could bring your bow while I collected could lead to a fine discussion. The day is gorgeous!"

Linda had bonded to a _hì'i pa'li, _a small breed of dire-horse, a pony, at the base of one of the three Martian orbital elevators and ridden the 450 kilometers to reach my home. She was calling her _hì'i pa'li, _"Bill the Pony", so I said "That sounds cool, Sam", self-consciously and perhaps pedantically showing off my English intentionally confusing Tolkien's rather formal language with some 20th century slang. "Let me put together _nikt'chey_, a bit of lunch."

No mater how many times I have see it, I always find watching a Human making _tsaheyl si_ wondrous. Linda and I walked to the enclosed area, where our clan's pa'li and her Bill were feeding, resting and enjoying each other's company. As she walked up to Bill she began a soft chant in the Common Speech.

I see you,

I hear you,

I ask your help,

I ask your pardon.

Nectar, it is good

But together we shall ride

For you shall show me wonders

And I shall feel your heart

And you shall see my mind.

Together we shall ride.

And Ariana, she shall sing

For together we shall ride.

I see you

I hear you

I ask your help,

I ask your pardon.

Bill left the herd and sidled up to Linda, who stroked his head as she continued her chant and he lowered his head and offered her one of his antenna. She placed her forehead near its end, near the fringes inside the bud and closed her eyes and touched it gently with her hand. And Bill offered his other and she touched its opening bud with her other hand. Both their breathing changed as they found the resonance between their minds, and she said in the Common Speech, "Bill, I thank you for this blessing" and mounted Bill as he stood and she readjusted her gentle touch on his antenna buds and prepared to ride. I saw Tskxe one of the herd with whom I was comfortable and who was comfortable with me, and made my own bond, queue to left antenna and we started riding to the south.

You may wonder if Linda requires breathing help on the Pandora-formed Mars. The air mix on Mars is a bit of a compromise, Pandorian enough to be supportive of all Pandorian life and be pleasing and comfortable to us Na'vi but with little enough cyanide compounds to not be fatal to Humans. Certain medicaments that Linda uses increase her comfort with this air but just as Na'vi often visit but rarely live on Earth, few Humans live on Mars. The Humans of Pandora, living there continuously since Jakesully's time, have made their own unique adaptations to that planet's air.

For two hours we rode in silence, stopping occasionally where Linda saw rings of _a-__äie torukspxam. _She would dismount, examine the mushroom fruits carefully, in a similar trance to her attitude while riding her _pa'li_ Bill, and select one or two, or sometimes forgo taking any from a particular mushroom ring. I was alert, but had as yet no need for my bow, as no animals were seen except for a few _irkan_ circling in thermals high above. We saw palulukan tracks in the mud several times but thankfully they were not fresh.

Once, while we stopped to collect the mushrooms, I found a rotting log with many fat _teylu_, tasty larva, which I began to collect and placed many in my carry bag. I may be a philologist, an expert in many an extinct Human language, known to scholars on all the Six Systems, having travelled with my mate to the stars, but there are over 800 Na'vi in my clan including many children, and a number of Human and Na'vi guests and all must eat and these _teylu _looked especially choice.

Resting and cooling my feet in a small stream, I commented to Linda, "I am thinking about how shocked, confused, even appalled a 21st century urban human would be by our ride today. Ray Kurzwiel wrote around 2008 about the impending merger of the Human mind with the silicon, 'the Singularity', the end of the biological. Yet you rode 10 days from the base of the Martian orbital elevator, at home hunt the walrus from a kayak with a spear, and talk to mushrooms, who answer back! While I, not human it is true, travel to the stars, yet I live by the wooden bow, the arrow tipped with a flint arrowhead and eat beetle grubs for dinner. How he would cry at the lost opportunities, his dream for mankind junked by circumstance and choice. However, was his vision of 'singularity' but a rather skill-less prefiguration of what actually would happen, the Great Reimaging, as both Human and Na'vi minds grew and became more aware?" Linda, retorted, looking up while enjoying and chewing a bit of the _nikt'chey _I had carried, a tough but tasty pemmican jerky, "He was just a _skxawng_. Those were all the writings of madmen, mad; like most all my ancestors, mad with loneliness and fear, fear of death".

"But, Linda, let us see your West Chester finds. Six issues of _Buffy Season 10 _wereabout Andrew's inadvertent discovery of the hidden network of plant intelligence that girdles the Earth. The _Blackflame_ Special inserting the idea that the dream realm is real into the subconscious of the fans, young and old alike, the Marvel Superheroes; all the literature, the Art that was truly loved by your ancestors was about connection mind-to-mind; dreams of magic, which always are of participation and cooperation with a greater mind that pervades the worlds, but one that is accessible, a mind immanent in all of life, Gaia. The Earth's _Tifyawìntxutxan_ may have been in pain but she was certainly not dead (or you humans most certainly would have been). Certain human minds, very few conscious in their work, most unconscious of such connection, were listening and produced inspired art. Art that ultimately helped guide you Humans back to sanity. Just when the most mechanistic of philosophies dominated all discourse, the popular arts blossom with magic. The evidence from the words, of how they had already begun to change between the 20th and 22nd centuries, before even the First War, proves that this art was being guided. Tolkien introduces a near worship of trees to some Americans circa 1960. After all, Linda, the very fact that you can make _tsaheyl si _with Bill the Pony proves that you Humans have an organ of mind and brain to participate with your Worlds self and mind. The bond may have been dormant, unexercised consciously, but your artists and visionaries were receiving Gaia's calls no matter how confused or corrupt, else you would have never survived.

Linda, swallowed a bit more of her lunch, "Yahnef, you are such a 'prefigurative intuitionalist', I bet you think that Samantha on _Bewitched_ was really an image of Gaia, and the Daren's inability to let her do her witchery was indicative of the deep unconscious struggle for mankind to deny 'the bond'. No, most every Human alive in those centuries was stark raving mad and you are interpreting humanity's random nightmares of disconnection and loss as signs of hope. There was no guidance in this art and all the works I love document Humanities natural madness, our pure _skxawng_ness. These artists were interesting powerless romantics, and I fear that you may be one too. There were no lasting positive changes and the madness continued until the 'heroic medicine' of the Na'vi attack in the Forth War 'bombed Earth back to the Stone Age'. I study the comics, because I love the stories and art and also so I will know how NOT to live! Those times were so sad. By the way, this pemmican is very good".

I took a strip of pemmican and began to chew, stood up and expounded, "Well _Bewitched _was one of thousands of books, comics, movies, dvd's, various entertainments on the same theme – humans dreaming of a world that was alive, alive in every possible way. _Bewitched_ may be as stupid and irritating to us as it must have been then but it was of a type. We have so little that is complete from that time, so much was destroyed in Great Chaos and the Fourth War – often just the title or a fragment survives, but for example when we note that Lovelock named Gaia only about 10 years after Tolkien published the _Lord of the Rings_, it becomes clear that much art was guided and this art prefigured the changes to come. Perhaps you 'naturalists' have to work so hard to stress the blindness and idiocy of Humans before the Imaging because you fear that if Humans were not complete morons at the start it would lessen the Reimaging's import and uniqueness." Sitting down I laughed, "Thank Eywa, that the Tifyawìntxutxan give no guidance on literary criticism or you and I would have nothing to argue about".

We continued to discuss Linda's finds and argue critical theory for several hours while we finished our lunch with several melon-like fruits that she picked, while Bill and Tskxe explored a flower patch near the stream. As we remounted Linda asked me again about the etymology of Tzitzit and I obliged with a story as we continued our search for mushrooms.

Linda, as you know well the entertainment banks for RDA's Pandorian personnel at Hellsgate are our best, often our only, source for 22nd century Human entertainment. The Humans on Pandora kept very complete records that survived the Great Chaos and the Four Wars. Moreover, when life is supported by machines, careful records must be kept, films made and voices recorded, for should something go wrong the engineers needed to know how to avoid future failures to protect the personnel and the bureaucrats needed to assign blame to protect the organization. Video logs, and vmail archives store many personal recollections. Thus, I have seen the surveillance tapes and the telemeter records at Hellsgate from Jakesully's time – Jake's snarl when taunted by Quaritch, recorded on Quaritch's AMP suit's video, and I have heard Naytiri's "I see you" as she rescued Jake and I have seen the tears on her face as recorded on the remote hutment's automatic systems. The records of the human story on Pandora are very complete.

There were twenty-two Avatar drivers just before the First War. Fourteen xeno-botanists, and xeno-zoologists, four cultural scientists and linguists, two were trained in geology and geophysics, there was one empty headed marine, and one rabbi. Nu, why a rabbi? A rabbi, why not a CPA or a duck? It is fair to ask.

Our story begins on Earth in 2125:

Saturday, June 9 2125, it is late spring and in the Chicago Metroplex of 2131 a clear and cool late June day with winds blowing off Lake Michigan, one with little smog and clear sky, was a rare joy. At Kehilat Etz-Chiam, Congregation Tree of Life, synagogue, in Evanston, 13 year old David Rosenbaum and Laura Hirsch were about to jointly help lead their congregation in prayer, as they became 'Bnai Mitzvot'. The Bar or Bat Mitzvah was even then, over a 1000 years ago, an ancient Jewish ritual of coming of age. Something of intellectual ordeal, appropriate to enter a highly intellectual religion, as both Laura and David had over several years learned Hebrew, memorized the prayers and melodies, and learned the ancient trope, that is the chant, for that weeks portion from the _Torah, _the nearly 3700 year old book of Jewish story and law. Both had prepared their _d'rash, _a teaching based the weeks reading, Parshat Shlach, a section in the book of Numbers that they would be chanting. This was all quite an effort for a pair of children.

Both Laura and David's families were moderately religious, as was common with American Jews of the early 22nd century. Those were difficult times for everybody on Earth, as the effects of warming, uncontrolled increase in population, resource shortages, and environmental collapse made for economic hardship, political instability, and continuous minor wars. At such times religion becomes a comfort and buttress for humans against a hard world, and for the Jews, always somewhat of a tribal people, a return to tradition and belief was perhaps even more comforting than for most. At least the widespread consumption of algae and tissue culture based 'syntha-food' made the rigorous Jewish dietary laws of Kashrut far easier to obey. Ham grown in tissue culture from an algae base is in no way the product of a pig nor even an 'animal product'. "Kosher Ham and Cheese on Rye" was no longer a joke.

Laura and David had studied hard, their studies made easier since they attended the nearly 200 year old Solomn Schecter Jewish day school in nearby Skokie. They were well prepared and rather excited, as much by one of the guests attending as by their upcoming public ordeal. Laura's uncle Aaron Hirsch was a genuine hero, a planetary scientist, a space explorer, an astronaut! Chief scientist of the RDA ship _RDA Centurian, _returning less than one month before from the first visit to the Alpha Centauri system, from Humankind's first trip to the Stars!

Laura had never met her uncle Aaron for he had departed shortly before she was born and David's father, Aaron's thesis advisor at The University of Chicago has not seen his star student in over 13 years. Aaron had already given both Laura and David their gifts, in secret – very small pieces, enclosed in glass vials, of rock from Pandora, the sixth moon of the gas giant Polyphemus. The gift would have been magical enough being from another solar system but this rock would float tranquilly in the air when placed on any piece of metal. Museums, universities, and government labs had small samples of the room temperature semiconductor that some of the astronauts had dubbed 'Upsidasium', others 'Unobtianium', each sample of incalculable value. Only one month after return and there was already talk of planning a mining colony, as this rock, what ever it would ultimately be called, was being spoken of as the panacea that would solve Earth's energy and pollution problems.

Dr. Hirsch had smuggled two tiny chips to give to his niece and his advisor's son on this day. "Laura, David, these samples came from a floating mountain 4 and ½ light years away. A mountain with waterfalls that fall through the sky, 2000 meters to the ground below! Floating mountains with dragon's nests on their peaks. Mountains floating above 200 meter high glowing trees. A moon with jungles and plains, and oceans, that are still filled with animals – the land and waters strong, still pure – like Earth must have been like 3700 years ago when the Torah was written. And there are people on this moon! Shy and smart – we only caught a glimpse of them rarely – who use arrows like the old wild Indians of American plains and are 3 meters tall, blue, with cat ears and long tails."

"Laura, David, this is a very special gift – except for scientists, a few museums, the RDA, and the government only you of anyone on Earth have any part of the moon Pandora." All that Laura and David could say was a very quiet and very awed, 'Thank you' and they carefully placed the crystal vials with tiny samples of unobtainium in their pockets just before the service started.

As the service began, there was a ritual; it probably originated in America about 1990. Their parents presented and placed the fringed prayer shawls, the tallisim, over their children's shoulders at the beginning of the service as this was the first time they would wear the shawls while praying. Some saw this public presentation of the tallis as somewhat hokey or overly sentimental, but it was a long-standing tradition of over 175 years duration at the Etz Chaim synagogue. The ritual was not particularly important but the parents, grandparents and relatives enjoyed it and found it evoked happy memories. Sometimes a particular tallis was a family heirloom, used by a beloved and deceased grandparent. Sometimes the child would continue to use that particular tallis while praying for the rest of their life. The ritual was nothing special, of no special holiness, beyond a meaningful, if minor symbol of continuity of belief.

However, this is how David described what happened when the tallis, was placed on his shoulders that Saturday morning, in his diary written many years latter. "At the moment the Tallis touched my neck, I went in to a trance. I was fully aware, and was able to continue the service without difficulty, but everything was different. I saw the connection of everyone in the room to every other person in the room and their connection with the sky above and the earth below, and saw that their emotions and striving and their fears were unnecessary but that these fears as they were acted on would quite possibly lead to the destruction of all humanity unless something changed radically. I felt the great age and import of the tradition that I had studied. I also felt a great sadness arising from the ground, coming through the walls of the shul [Yiddish for synagogue] from the few poor trees that struggled in the garden of the shul and I felt a connection coming from the south, from the direction where Alpha Centauri would be if it were visible from Chicago a palpable connection coming up all four string fringes, the tzitzit, of the new tallis. The palpable connection was to a feminine mind, motherly yet totally wild – It was as if there were twin women, one on Earth and one on Pandora. One who was so sad yet very much alive, and one who was strong wild and even defiant, but also thoughtful and even showing some fear, if one can describe God as being able to feel fear.

I looked at Laura, as her parents placed the tallis on her, and she seemed to glow and seemed to have a second body 10 or 11 feet tall with her, and she had a look of total surprise, and total loveliness. At that moment I knew, at age 13, that I was to become a rabbi, I was also to master languages, and that Laura and I would, at the right time and in the right place, marry and ultimately have children. The trance then ended."

Laura Hirsch as an adult described "feeling pure joy and bliss, coming up all four of the tzitzit and flowing from my neck and head and into my body. I knew at that moment in every cell in my body what 'love your neighbor as your self' meant. That 'neighbor' meant far more than grouchy old Mr Blackwater who lived next door, that 'self' had meanings that were infinitely deep. I was in love with the World, the whole universe, and I was loved back. And I saw I that at some time I would spend my life with David and together we would see wonders. Luckily for me and for those at my Bat Mitzvah, this connection lasted only a minute or so, but it seemed like hours or months and I wished it would never end".

Laura and David proceeded to perform a 'normal' Bnai Mitzvot, and those who attended this Bar and Bar Mitzvah were largely unaware that anything particularly special had happened except perhaps Uncle Aaron who was 'a scientist and interstellar astronaut' after all, and David's aunt Cecilia, who had a sharp wit and stronger intuition, said to David during the meal afterward – "looked like you two were Moses and Merriam talking to God on Sinai up there on the bimah [Heb: pulpit] and you came down with glowing faces". David just blushed truly making his face glow. Friends, family and fellow congregants commented on the beauty of the service and praised how intense and 'into it' the two children seemed. It was a good memory for family and friends alike. David and Laura both were silent to all about what had happened, including to each other.

Their teen years were normal, sane as any 22nd century human teenagers lives could be. Full of puppy dog romances and break-ups, the human deeply meaningless practice bonding that your species is prone to even to this day. It was as if their visions were a seed to germinate later, sleeping even if remembered in the dark ground of their minds. And as they entered their tweens they attended the same university, Boston-Harvard-MIT-University (known then as BHMU), where David studied linguistics and Laura anthropology. As predicted in both their visions they also finally studied each other and fell deeply in love as they finally recounted to each other the story of that morning in June nearly ten years before. The June they graduated, with David bound to rabbinic school in Philadelphia and Laura to graduate studies in Anthropology in the same city, they were married both draped together under a wedding canopy, the chuppah, made of two prayer shawls, the tallises they had received on a similar June day in Evanston years before.

David became Rabbi of a Jewish congregation in Boulder Colorado, and Linda continued her PhD research as young professor in the highly speculative area of non-human anthropology (an oxymoron, if ever there was one). With five subsequent expeditions to of Pandora and initial building of Hellsgate, there were the first human contacts with the Na'vi and this peculiarly named field became the hottest area of study in the humanities (well, well, another oxymoron!). Information was sparse, as her uncle Aaron had said the Na'vi were 'shy', and an interstellar expedition took more than 10 years round trip, with radio communications only slightly faster but the scholars made up in excitement what that lacked in data. The biggest issue was understanding the language and David, in between his work as spiritual leader for 500 Jewish families, continued to engage his love of language assisting his wife in trying to put together the tools needed to begin decoding our speech based on cultural guesses.

Linda and David made the first breakthroughs in translating Na'vi, based on careful study of films and recordings. The key was David and Linda's basically religious world-view. They were the first to realize two vital points in understanding both us Na'vi and our language. That the Na'vi did not see technique and technology as the basic organizing principle for their world but rather lived in relationship with a world that was alive, and that there was some hidden communication method other than spoken language that underlay how the Na'vi communicated with each other. Basically the Na'vi expected to be able to speak to the world and their world to speak back to them. This was the basis of several papers published by Linda that are the beginnings of human understanding of the Na'vi language.

The Avatar project was announced in 2044. Aaron Hirsch was director of research for RDA and it was his idea to recruit his niece and nephew for the project. Working with Dr. Augustine who was to lead the project on Pandora, they personally selected those who would be recruited as the initial 'drivers' and the experts in Na'vi culture and language were obvious choices. When Aaron and Grace visited them both in the fall of that year it took perhaps five seconds before they accepted the offer. They both arrived on Pandora with their dreamwalker bodies in 2148.

**The next chapter will continue the story of what happens when a Rabbi and a Rebbitzin (a rabbi's wife) go for a walk on Pandora.**


	4. Chapter 4 The Rabbi He Does Wonders

**The Rabbi He Does Wonders, He Goes into the Water and He Comes Out Wet!**

I paused in my story telling, both Linda and I became alert to a movement in the trees maybe 500 meters away, a small herd of strumbeast and we were downwind. Both Linda and I listened and waited. Was the herd a group of bachelor males or a group of cows with calves and the three bulls that made up a strumbeast breeding 'pod'. A group of bachelor males has a different feel, the sound of the herd, the way small animals and insects react and the smell is different. You early third millennium humans might want to know 'how I knew', the words to describe this quality, an analysis. But that is not how I, a Navi hunter structure my world when living my day, and I think Linda would agree similarly when hunting on earth. I could work in such analysis and give you the words but it really does not interest me to talk about the words I would use to describe finding my dinner. That story is not only boring to me but I will make the presumption that creating the words to describe this knowledge is not good for you. You humans of your time are too analytic already; much would have been easier if you were to have spent time just observing what is without the words. Let us just say – We listened and we knew.

The balance is always easier to keep with a bachelor herd – what is the passing of an unmated male strumbeast compared to the pain of a mother losing her calf, or one of her herd's bulls.

I took my bow and notched an arrow. I looked at Linda and she understood intuitively what would happen and quietly circled Bill to the back flank of the herd. A few seconds later she galloped forward on Bill, with a whoop and yell. The panicked beasts rushed toward me on the their six legs, As Tskxe galloped to the left side of herd of stampeding strumbeasts, I eyed a yearling bull, looking him in the eye. I settled my belly, and let the arrow fly at that moment just before I exhaled. As the arrow entered above his shoulder and as it pierced his the heart I followed his eye as he fell, feeling both my own mortality and the gift of my life from Tsamsirolyututu and my gratitude for both that life and my future death. Both Linda and I rode up to the fallen strumbeast and dismounted. I placed my hands on the beast's head, and whispering in his ear gave my thanks as I honored its life and its gift to us as I slit his throat and the blood flowed into the ground where it would fertilize the life of plants and feed the worms and bugs, the first return of this Strumbeast's life to Tsamsirolyututu, to Ariana.

Your Dreams in life were many cows and many calves.

Your fate, to die this afternoon to feed a people,

Your Spirit serves all life and I give many thanks,

And I am humbled.

I took my knife, gathered two dead branches and used rope from my carry bag to construct a travois so that Tskxe could drag the Strumbeast back to our home.

After securing the strumbeast to the travois, we turned back toward our tree and I continued my story:

Laura and David first saw Pandora from the shuttle that brought them from the ISV to the surface. David held Laura's hand as they sat behind the pilots and looked on the misted floating mountains, and the green jungle and as they looked to the east saw the browner grasslands which faded near the terminator to end in a blue sea. Polyphemus loomed above and the two suns Alpha Centauri A and B were visible. Laura squeezed David's hand and said 'Oh look, the numberless leaves, the trees, all the trees!' and she said this prayer in Hebrew:

Baruch ata Adonai Eloheniu, Melekh ha'olam, shehekianu,

v'kimanu, v'higianu lazman hazeh.

Praised be to You, Adonai our God, ruler of all the worlds,

who has kept us alive, and has preserved us, and enabled

us to reach this day.

They both remained silent until the shuttle landed.

The RDA miners were ice cold flinty men and women, adventures, soldiers of fortune. Spend a 12 to 15 year stint (including 9 years in cryo-sleep) and one returned to Earth rich with a few good stories, if one returned at all. The engineers' love was the project; the managers' love was success. The Avatar project was staffed with doctors and scientists. Their love may have been for the truth but it was truth on their own terms.

Laura and David were members of the Avatar team; they had trained with them and got along well enough with their comrades. But David, as a 'man of the cloth' had his own questions and his own fears, those of faith, of life lived well, of trying to experience love, grace and fear of God or having to act like the universe was coherent even during those times when the world consists only of betrayal and nonsense. His life was filled simultaneously with deep certainty and deep doubt. Such is the life of a thoughtful rabbi. Yet, years before, for just a few minutes, Laura and he had entered into tsaheylu si with the soul and spirit of this moon. The shuttle was in its final approach to Hell's Gate, as they decelerated over the 1 Km deep open pit of the mine and began the final flare out. The landing stuts extended.

Several days later, after they had learned the base, settled in and attended the Coronel Quiritch's mandatory safety shpiel they put on the exo-packs and explored the base perimeter near the Avatar training environment that was under construction. They walked in silence around the native plants, touching the bark and leaves of trees and shrubs and walked up to the perimeter fence as a light rain began to fall. The next day Linda and David donned their Exo-packs, and took their siddurs [Jewish prayer books] and the old fringed Tallises received as gifts from their parents years before and prayed their morning prayers standing right at the perimeter fence as Polyphemus set and a sun rose. As they reached the Shmah, the prayer that affirms God's oneness, at the place in that prayer where the tzitzit, the fringes on the tallis are mentioned, and tradition says that a Jew should take them and lightly kiss them as remembrance of God and God's oneness, they heard a soft rustle on the other side of the fence. A Na'vi child a bit shorter then they ran up to the fence and stared. They stared back, golden eyes looking into grey while they held the four tzitizt on their tallis in their hands. The young blue girl, for to them she was hardly 'little', looked at the knotted white strings on the shawls draped over their shoulders, then held her queue and gently touched its bud which blossomed open and she showed them her beautiful white and living strings too and smiled and ran off with a laugh. A heavy ran began to fall.


	5. Chapter 5 The Qualia of Mercy

**The Qualia of Mercy is Not Strained.**

While a thunderstorm was passing over, we rode in silence. Linda broke the silence with a fragment of a chant

As if we had a heart to hit,

Six arrows flew,

Aimed by seeming heartless minds.

As darkness grew

Upon that day with six new forged

And seething suns,

The cities burned, our people died,

The earth it froze.

Twelve months there was no light,

From pain we rose. . .

Stopping her song, Linda asked, "Yanef, Did David and Laura know the significance of the girl's queue?"

I responded, "Scientifically, as those in the first group of Avatar drivers, they would have to have been introduced to Na'vi anatomy and physiology. They would have been taught that the queue was a sense organ, perhaps analogous to the electric organ found on Earth fishes, one to sense the surroundings and gather the gestalt of the environment. Human's had seen the Na'vi riding Pali and photographed the antenna of the direhorse and Na'vi queue in teshulu and intuited that this in someway allowed the Na'vi horseman to control the animal. Laura and David as the authors of many an academic paper on Na'vi language, were aware of the word 'tsaheylu'

The Na'vi child, the 'eveng, probably was excited by both seeing Tawtute, and fascinated with the strings of the Tzitzit which did slightly resemble her tendrils. Perhaps she felt she had something in common with the two strangers and since they were approximately her height she may have thought they were children. I doubt she understood what a fence was, and may have expected David and Laura to climb over or around it to run after her to play. She of course knew what her queue was, if not in words, in her sensorum, in the depths of her mind and world, and its effect permeated every aspect of her and her people's life. Perhaps she was relieved to see that there was something familiar and safe, for Na'vi infants make tsaheylu, with their mothers while nursing and she would have remembered that wondrous joy, at least subconsciously. For if the tendrils of the queue may be the most intimate body part (far more so then our genitals) for us Na'vi they are also our organ of joy, command, terror, gnosis, and comfort. That she thought David and Laura shared this with her was likely both a comfort and a certainty. A thinking being without a queue was inconceivable to a Na'vi child and of fundamental philosophical disquiet to any Na'vi adult.

In terms of Laura and David Seeing the 'evang it is harder to say. Laura and David both kept detailed diaries, both open, that is video logs, and private, for their own pleasure and contemplation that have survived the millennium. They noted the encounter, with considerable detachment in their official logs, and with joy and fascination in their diaries. This was after all their first encounter with a Na'vi, it was clearly an attempt to communicate something and children are full of infectious joy in both our species.

Quoting from the Jewish morning prayers, lines from the old book of Numbers, in his diary entry for that day David wrote:

". . . tell them to make themselves tzitzit (fringes) upon the corners of their clothes throughout the generations … look at it and remember all the miztvot [Good deeds, or commandments] of the Lord . . . "

Judaism, Tzitzit and the Jewish prayer shawl were, after all, central to the direction of both their lives. Thus the child's arrival felt like no accident but part of a continuing story. Both Laura and David were of a mystic sensibility and saw coincidences not as accidents but as part of a larger plan, the action of a divine mind. Constitutionally and by their separate training as rabbi and anthropologist they tended to take nothing for granted and appreciated 'story', and drew new connections and associations rapidly. The same day Laura noted in her diary. "As the Na'vi 'evang ran off, I looked up to see dozens of what appeared to be a cross between a large transparent dandelion seed and jellyfish swimming through the air on both sides of the fence. At least one landed momentarily on both David and mine's tallisim (prayer shawls) and rose up. The base of each seed resembled the ends of my tzitzit or the tendrils on the bud of the 'evang's queue. Could these actually have been floating atokirina' seeds, which we students of the Na'vi culture have thought are solely mythical? What a wonderful day."

You humans, certainly those of Jakesully's time, are perhaps more naturally imaginative then Na'vi. I can posit a 21st century comic book or movie; let us say around 2010, creating a people like the Na'vi. Such fantasies were loved and Linda, as you know as well as I, tales of strange fabricated worlds and beings were the staple of human culture and entertainment. If well done, I suspect such a work would have been very popular. The Avatar project itself was so strange, and difficult, so human. There were so many simpler solutions to problem of survival on and understanding of Pandora yet you humans chose the strangest, and perhaps the most emotionally devastating.

For the Na'vi, imagining something like a Tawtute in one of our songs from that time, something totally not 'of Eywa' was not only not done it was impossible, there were simply no words to hang on to the concept."

"Linda, why did you sing of the Fourth War a few minutes ago?"

Linda answered, "Yanef, It seemed appropriate, given your story about Laura and David. I could feel how the little events, both beautiful and sad led to that great cataclysm. We humans spent our time masturbating about phantasms, rather than seeing our own world at our own feet and trying to listen – there was plenty beautiful to hear and to say and to see to those who would listen and look. If we contemplated imaginary exotic space aliens so well, why were we so feckless when we actually met them? I guess 700 years later we are still angry, there is still pain, that our story had to go the way it did."

The rain became quite heavy, as I began the story again.

-It took several months to prepare the launch of the Avatars. During that time Laura and David would try to pray at least once a day at the perimeter, near the Avatar huts which were rapidly nearing completion. The little Na'vi girl did show up once again during those months. Again looking them straight in the eyes, she said, in Na'vi of course, and with the lightning quick breathless speech of certain curious and outgoing children of a certain age in both our species. At an age where they have gained some fluency of speech, but still retain some of that coy trust of the infant:

"_I see you_

_my name is Ton'ong _

_what are your names?_

_Are you sick? _

_Why are you are covered in bandages and cloths?_

_Why are you pink, don't you bath, or are you grubs who live in the ground?_

_You look and smell funny? _

_Pointing at the exo-pack mask – Those are funny Irkan-makto eye guards – are you already bound to an Irkan?_

_If you really live in the sky, where are your wings?_

_(Pointing at the fringes of tallisim they were wearing) Why do you have four __tsaheylu__? Why do they show all the time?_

_Why do you hide your tail? Won't you fall over?_

_You have no ears!_

_Do you think Polyphemus is beautiful at night?_

_Do you love you mother? What is her name?  
Can you come and play?"_

Both Laura and David were rather taken aback both by the ewang's boldness and the sweetness and innocence of the questions.

Laura answered, in her best Na'vi:

"_I see you, Ton'ong._

_My name is Laura, and this is", pointing to her husband, "David"._

"_I think Polyphemus is very beautiful when I see him in the sky and my mother's name is Miriam, and I miss her as she is very far away. Sky people do not have wings. " _

_Holding out the fringes on her prayer shawl, "These are called tzitzit. They help us remember when we pray._

_What is your mother's name? _

_Does she know you are here?_"

Ton'ong replied, "_My mother's name is Trr'ong and she is watching me from over there in the trees. _

_Can't you see her? _

_She is scared a little bit for me. _

_To protect me, she has an arrow pointed at your heart, Loraaa. _

_My auntie Txoa has an arrow aimed at you, Da'vit. _

_I told them not to worry, that you were nice, and there is a metal vine in front of you but my mother and auntie Txoa worry about me too much. _

_I am learning to shoot an arrow. Are you?"_

Holding out the bud of her queue, "_This is my tsaheylu. It helps me pray to Eywa too"_

Linda said speaking loudly but calmly in Na'vi, "_You are very brave Ton'ong as us Sky People could seem strange and dangerous. I think your mother and Aunt must love you very much to protect you so carefully. I wish I could come play with you but I cannot go around the metal vine. Could you ask your mother to come, I would like to met her and see her._"

Ton'ong dropped her tail and ears and crouched, and reminded David and Laura a bit of a very large pensive kitten, ready to swat at a fly, as she thought hard about the request and she replied, before she ran off into the trees, smiling. "_Loraaa, Da'vit_, _I am thinking, I have to keep my mom very safe too! But my mother is a very brave hunter and maybe she will come?_"

Ton'ong was certainly a very brave young Na'vi befitting the daughter of such a hunter as Trr'ong, but after she ran into the trees laughing, neither she nor her mother and aunt we seen again on that day by Laura and David. Later, as they walked back to the base, Laura did hear the call of two banshees, two irkan, flying and what seemed like the girl's speech and that of two mature Na'vi women speaking, as if from the air at that same distance. Laura said to David, "When we have a child, I dream she is as brave as Ton'ong, and I am as good a mother as Trr'ong." And she grabbed David's hand and squeezed.

Weeks later, after much preparation, and much engineering tinkering, the avatar infrastructure at Hells Gate, the link units, the support systems, even the avatar sleeping compound were finished and put in tune – ready for the first link-ups. After the initial tests and trial links, it time for Laura and David first voyage in their dreamwalker bodies. They went in separately on different days.

This is how David described his first experience in a Na'vi body:

"Pete, Abby, and George, who linked in at the same time as me, wanted to explore their new bodies, they wanted exercise their newly enlarged, 3 meters big, gross motor skills and went off to find the obstacle course and basketball hoops. I wanted to sit quietly to observe my own body, how it was to live in the sensorum of another species; what was thought like now – not how things looked or smelled, but how I did the looking, how I did the seeing. That is the qualities, to make a bad philosopher's pun, of the qualia of existing in this mostly Na'vi body; of having a truly new mind. So after leaving the preparation building I walked out slowly, found a clearing and sat down on the ground, legs folded under me. My tail! Jezus Frigging Christ, MY FRIGGING TAIL, bending up in an arc as a strong fifth limb. I can move it, and my ears too!"

"Try to describe what it is to see the color red, the actual sensation of that seeing. You can't, it is beyond words; it has to be. What you see as red and what I see may be totally different, there is no way for you to know what I am actually perceiving, yet we will both call that paint color 'red'. No way that is shared, unless we were to share one mind. This internal look and feel is what is called the qualia of perception of red. And now in addition to the rainbow of color from Earth, I now also have a new spectrum to experience. In my avatar body, in this dream-body, I live a whole new set of qualia. And I can't describe them to you. Even using the color words of Na'vi, how can I let you know how I see that color in the veins of the large leaf above my head? I know that it is a reflection of light in the near infrared. I can say it is beautiful, I can tell you where I see that color, but I can't describe what that color IS to me."

"If I think about how my human body feels, I am aware that my left and right sides feel different. I am right handed and my left side, if I really pay attention to it feels bit odd, at least different, not quite fully part of me. In this Na'vi avatar dream body I am aware of my center-line as my core from which my limbs emerge – a greater symmetry – a lack of handedness. Perhaps this is an effect of my Na'vi brain's third lobe. Perhaps it synchronizes and balances the two sides of my body. And I am aware of this neural queue. It has its own sensations which change continuously – the only way I can describe them is to say the qualia when I pay attention to those perceptions, and they are subtle, rather resembles those of my vision. Perhaps with this organ I am like man blind since birth restored to sight as an adult. That formerly blind man cannot see because he does not in his mind's wiring know what the eyes are for yet. Perhaps the images from this organ are meaningless because I have not learned to see with, what the little Na'vi girl called, my bodily tzitzit, a holy fringe."

Laura was a bit less philosophical, "Waking up in my avatar was to become one with a dream. Beauty is too weak a word, there are no words possible even were I poet of the incomprehensible skill of a Shakespeare. In this new body to perceive is to love and to know the divine in every glance and every breath."

The next time they linked, they went in together and by chance they were the only ones linked in that day. Laura's description of that afternoon and evening is only in her personal diary that has survived the millennium, kept by the humans on Pandora as a heirloom for generations. She did not share these thoughts in a formal video-log.

" I awoke from my bed in the avatar compound, David's bed was next to mine and he too was arising. I walked over to see him. As he turned toward me, I fell in love with David yet again. As I saw him in his Na'vi form, each feature, his leonine nose, the shape and color of his eyes, the softly glowing luminescent spots, even his tail, sharp teeth and ears seemed perfect. As those features that I loved in David were transformed for this new mind – each perfection in his human body was mapped to its Na'vi analog. I was literally 'of two minds' each look, the touch of his hand holding mine, his scent evoked both my human feeling of being head over heels in love, the emotions and the bodily senses in their full wonderful intensity, and new ones, completely different, completely foreign yet familiar to the muscle memory of this form and deliciously appropriate for this Na'vi dream-body I found myself in. I was 'head-over-tail' in love too."

"Holding David's hand I said in Na'vi (it seemed appropriate – after all we both 'were' Na'vi, at least in this 'dream') _let us walk slowly to where we say our morning prayers together, where we met Ton'ong, to watch the sunset through the fence and see the twilight emerge_.

David just looked at me, squeezed my hand just a little bit tighter and just said 'srane!' [yes]. As we walked the primary sun was setting casting the clouds with red light and light in other colors, red but more than red, blue but more than blue and orange but more than orange and David's face was illuminated, his glowing spots brighter and even more enticing. As we reached the stump near the fence we sat down and I touched his face to trace the lines of emerging light – Dave only said 'srane!, yes!, oh yes, oh Laura!' and we kissed. And we began to explore each others dream bodies, to explore this foreign country sitting next me that I thought I knew so well – each river of light, each hill of flesh, the two cities of his eyes as the twilight faded below the horizon. Several of the gentle atokirina floated by and brushed against both David and I, sending a bit of a thrill felt in my queue producing something almost like a glow of light somewhere deep in my mind as they touched my skin. "

"After a time David began to explore my braided hair protecting my queue. Yes, it seems Na'vi have many erogenous zones, and I thought that David had discovered all of mine in our long kissing and loving touch, that is until he gently touched that braid and I cried, 'Yes, David, Yes, Srane!, oh Yes, oh Yes - my beloved" in Na'vi, in English and in Hebrew, and I began to explore his long braided hair slowly and carefully starting at his skull and traveling over many, many minutes to the reach the bud at its tip. "

"It seemed natural to both of us that we would touch the little tendrils together, the little wiggles just sort of invited it, they were just cute and enticing – and then we linked - - - "

"It was not David's thoughts I felt, nor his emotions nor his sensations, but rather the very matrix from which his emotions and thoughts emerged was now made mine. And I felt his awareness of my essence reflected back to me and so on and on and on, as the mirrors at a hair dressers salon recede with images to infinity, or the peach shaped lakes of black in Mandelbrot's set just contain ever and ever more black lakes of black peaches. And at the end of this repeating and receding shimmer of the love of David and I reflecting and reverberating in each other until the ends of time and space was the shining light of the unknowable shimmering darkness in light and light in darkness that is, was and ever will be the ultimate Union of All that is God."

"Both David and I were surrounded and aware of the life and blessing of this planet, of Pandora, of Eywa'evang and its spirit, that of our own Earth and its own spirit, and of the fathomless space between two stars and the matrix from which all of these emerged. Yes! David and I were certainly in Love with each other and with Love itself. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh, Yes!"


	6. Chapter 6  Tee Vee Tonight

Tee Vee Tonight - in which Yanefpieywa again warns the reader why he is writing and that they could be disappointed. Ton'ong, writes a poem in English, while on Earth. Yanef, Yanhef's students and Linda watch some 22nd century TV while sharing a drinks and a snack after their well-earned dinner.

Dear imaginary human readers, who in my conceit are reading this in the distant past. You might want more, of the personal struggle, the drama and the pain of how my world came to be. Perhaps you crave a bit more fighting and the details of war, and who hated who and who loved skillfully or without skill and how they did it. However, as I warned at the beginning, I am a philologist, an 'unillì'utìyawnyu', a 'lover of the dream words' and although this story of how words and my basically happy life came to be may have sad, terrible, or joyful parts, it may not be dramatic enough for your tastes and may be full of talk not action. If so, I know your world has many an entertainment that will meet you needs and for me to recommend them from my future would be presumptuous but if so go with my blessing that in story may you find both what you want and actually need.

Forever falling, roots are torn from ground.

Fed ashes, not milk, babes' mouths are torn from breast.

Beloved's queue is torn from scalp by guests.

I am despoiled, and joy cannot be found.

Yet now I travel forth, myself a guest

Of those who blindly raped my home and bound

Our loved and treasured land to rob its ground.

Yet you say to save your own world is your quest.

Your Goddess, did she abandon Man to drown

In your own din, effluvium and shit; to dispossess

Yourselves of all she had to give; to infest

Yourselves with ego to destroy your ground?

On Earth, my home is but a star.

From Eywa'eveng, Earth is but a star.

As I finished reciting this poem, Linda said, "Yanef, I know that poem, or something close, I learned it as child, the "Na'vi Guest's Lament". Though I have only heard it in the Common Speech, not the English. We were told it was very old, a relic from shortly after the First War, written in English by a Na'vi woman, Omaticaya, who fought in that war and who visited Earth during the Nearly-Lasting Peace. It always seemed that the writer is not sure if she should blame mankind or blame Gaia's lack of stewardship for the humanity's plight. I feel she thought the Gaia had failed her duties as our mother and thus held at least some blame. As a little girl I thought the author was especially angry that she had been betrayed by the humans and thus made to feel the emotions of anger and hate. That having these emotions rather than the acts themselves is what stole joy and kept her Hometree falling forever. I wondered if perhaps the poem was really written by a human.

Yes Linda, I also learned this poem, in old Na'vi, from my Ma'ot. Among the Pandora born Na'vi, the tradition is that Ton'ong visited Earth both as an ambassador of the Na'vi and to meet with David and Laura Rosenbaum again. They both had returned to Earth, with their avatars, just before the Disaster of Grace's School. Laura and David wished to return to Earth, most likely to have children, hoping to return again to Pandora when their family was mature, yet were loath to leave their dreamwalker bodies in cryo-sleep on Pandora. They convinced the RDA, that bringing active avatars back to Earth could be excellent publicity. However I believe their reason was largely due to their erotic love with all their bodies. They were bound together as both a human couple and as a Na'vi mated pair and I suspect felt their souls would die without the presence of all parts of themselves, new and old.

Some of Ton'ong's memoirs of that time were preserved at Hell's Gate during the Peace. These include a copy of a holo-tri-v made on Earth of Laura, David, and Ton'ong being interviewed together on a 'Talk Show'– David and Laura in their dreamwalker avatar bodies! Perhaps, after we help the cooks skin and gut the strumbeast, and later join the meal, we can visit my clan's techno-grot and view copies of these recordings.

To those of you who, in my conceit, read this from the past, a 'techno-grot' needs some explanation at least as an exercise to allow me to clarify my world to myself by the use of the English. Every living being and each object, even every artifice made by human or na'vi, be it a bow or a computer, has its _äi_e, its spirit and soul, not as seen by me, but as felt and lived by the thing itself. The _äie _of each such being_, _as projected in the world, becomes a desire to effect and change others – to be in relationship with the 'other'. The _äie _of the electrical machinery, computers, communications equipment, entertainment modules are very strong and tend to be very inflexible. They all call to us, to our own _äie_, both that of human and Na'vi, to be like them; of one purpose, concerned mostly with speed, with accuracy, with fact. Each may have the need to serve but on their terms; a servant whose tendency is to rule and it is the inflexibility of the _äie _of such machines can lead to make my relationship with its _äie_ easilyunbalanced. The computer, the radio, or the ansible, the orbital elevator or the railroad expects me to become like it, to be in _teshylu si_ in only one direction, from the machine and never to it.

Personally I think that humans sometime after your 18th Century became possessed by the _äie _of their tools and this helped lead to your madness. And as you went mad, your machines reflected back your insanity amplified and this continued in an endlessly growing loop, until you lost your senses and your minds.

Both Na'vi and Humans now certainly use technical artifice, radios and ansibles, the orbital elevators and the smaller System Ships, refrigeration for extra foods which is such an aid in preserving the Balance, and much more. The Live Ships, each of which is an entire ecology of life and machine whose _äie _are seamlessly in harmony and partnership with their Go and Stop Captains, their passengers and even the souls of the stars and seeming voids through which they travel, are perhaps our greatest art.

But we are careful. Speed is not our goal, nor is dominion, and our Geeks, that is still our word in the Common Speech, that is our artificers, train for years in the art of _teshylu si_ with the seeming inanimate stuff from which our machines our made. Certain peoples seem more likely to be called to the hard and even dangerous path of 'Geek'. For they do risk the loss of true Sight, the communion with all of life that is birthright of both Na'vi and Human, as they do their work but if they excel they will See in ways that are granted to very few. Human members of Jewish congregations (yes there are still Jews, now over 4700 years since that people were born) are often called to Geek, as are Na'vi who descend from the old Sea Clans and children born to the monks and nuns at the Co-Benedictine Christian Abbeys. However any one, Na'vi or Human, may get the call to this peculiar vocation, as our daughter Husawngti 'Iheyu was called six years ago. She now apprentices on the cold moon of Saturn, Titan, at the Abbey of St. Michael learning engineering, art, design and the meditations to sense the _äie _of both the animate and seeming inanimate.

However, most of us Human and Na'vi keep most of our technology in the 'techno-grot', a separate yet hallowed place in any habitation where the machines' _äie_ is at peace with its surroundings and our own surroundings are thus not dominated by the _äie_ of the machines.

"Oh Boy! Tee Vee tonight" yelled Mitch Kirsley, one of my three personal students, a human from New Durham the fifth planet of Andre's Star, the most remote of the Six Systems. Next to him as we entered the Techno-grot were Nitram Ram and Syvlang my two Na'vi students both of Mars, and Linda. Syvlang was holding a bowl of fried Teylu and she let out a war whoop in response to Mitch's yell. So he gently, or at least playfully, grabbed her tail. "Hey, who do you think you are? John Carter? This ain't Barsoom, its Mars! You horny monkey," retorted Syvlang who proceeded to knock Mitch on the head rather hard with the tip of her tail.

"Hey, you ain't no princess either," retorted Mitch as he rubbed his forehead and grabbed a handful of the fried grubs from Syvlang's bowl and began to stuff the handful in his mouth. "Mmm, fried just right. Just think of human life back then, watching Teeee Veeee eight hours a day, eating all the Teylu you want, all perfectly fried, salted and packaged in nice clean bags from some factory – that must have been the life!".

"Mitch, you skxawng, humans who watched 'Tee Veeee' didn't eat Telyu back then, they ate plastic corn puffs from their clear bags, or something like that. I have seen pictures from the Grocery Store dig, they looked a bit like Telyu, but they were covered with toxic looking yellow dust and it is thought they were made from petroleum refining waste" said Nitram Ram as she too took a few of the fried grubs from Syvlang's bowl and then tapped the back of Mitch's head very gently with the tip of her tail.

"No Telyu, no wonder my ancestors were insane", responded Mitch. "We have so much to be thankful to the Na'vi for."

"Yes, like awakening your latent abilities at tsaheylu si, reintroducing you to your true Mother, and increasing your propensity to fantasies about inter-species sex", said Syvlang with her ears and tail up rather flirtatiously. So Mitch said, quietly, "Yes and we taught you physics, space travel, writing, metallurgy, biology and awakened your latent curiosity about the larger universe and in return you nearly destroyed our home planet. But Teylu, and fantasies of interspecies sex make up for that!" said Mitch as he goosed the base of Syvlang's tail. This time, Mitch ducked as Syvlang's tail struck out again, so it nearly hit Nitram Ram's torso, but she deflected Syvlsng's with her own tail. They all laughed and hugged, during which Mitch reached up and grabbed the Teylu bowl from Syvlang so they all started tussling, Mitch using his much smaller size to advantage, escaped with the prize bowl of fried grubs, amazingly without spilling any.

"Philologists, or should I yell 'children' or maybe 'coyotes' " called Linda. "Quit acting like bemushroomed moose in heat, and give me some of the Teylu before they all hit the floor, and pour me a large beer from that barrel over there. Lets get down to some serious academical analysis."

I calmly said, "I collected these grubs, so I should get the Toruk's share, but I would be pleased to have a handful. Are you all so entranced by the technic in the grot that you are just going mad? No, you three must be immune since you never had any minds to lose, so the holo-tri-v can't do any damage. Pour me a beer too – a big one. Letting out a little hiss I bopped all three of my students with my tail so quickly no one had time to duck and then I grabbed the bowl. "As I said, the Toruk's share."

Settling in, us three Na'vi crouching on the soft floor of the technogrot, the two humans, kneeling on cushions on high benches along the wall, we took our beers, and the Teylu (which I decided to generously share) as the recording started.

The basket of the holo-tri-v illuminated with the animated five-foot high three-dimensional words that morphed from a distant view of the solar system, zooming in on the Earth down to New York City - _The Daily Show with_ _Miguel_ _Hilmers – June 6, 2174 _as the nearly 975 year old recording began and a deep booming voice said in English, "Tonight's special guests, Rabbi David Rosenbaum, Linda Rosenbaum, from Pandora, Ambassador Ton'ong daughter of Trr'ong of the Omaticaya, and an unexpected guest, Parker Selfridge, former Prime Minister of the North American Federation and Chairman of the Restorationist Party"

Linda paused the recording, and said, good scholar that she was, "To think that this program had been shown continuously for over 170 years when this was recorded, and that it continued to be broadcast in some form until the Forth War. Even after 170 years the _Daily Show's _basic form remained the same – the funny commentary on the days news, always with a somewhat liberal, above it all, and sophisticated slant, followed by interviews with guests that were typically intelligent even if interspersed with silliness. The Restorationists, sometimes known as the GP (the Green or Gaian Party) were the liberal party in the N.A. federation from the 2150's through the late 22's and by 2170 the _Daily Show _had become a GP partisan favorite. There were similar programs for partisans of the conservative Human Imperative Party, the HIP. I did not know that any _Daily Show _recording from the late 22nd century survived – this is quite amazing. Mitch, could you get me another beer, and Yanef quit hogging the Teylu, damn it!"

Linda started the Tri-d and the ads started. "And this form, of the ads, was almost 250 years old, going back to the beginning of broadcast radio." We watched in silence an advertisement for an ultrasonic clothes washer, and the trans-continental maglev, but when the ad for Cheetos came on and the Tri-d basket filled with what looked like four foot long animated toxic yellow plastic Teylu each with malignant bumps and pimples, pouring out of an animated talking bag to a jaunty, at least to 950 year old human ears, jingle we really were aghast. Mitch called out "I take it all back – I am SO glad I didn't live then – Humans actually ate THOSE and watched THIS. I think I have throw up. Help please, save us from ourselves," as he ran out of the techno-grot clutching his stomach.


	7. Chapter 7  Selfridge Falls Off His Ass

Mitch returned shortly later, perhaps he did vomit. However, what ever happened reduced neither his desire for beer nor Teylu, though he remained suspicious of the Tri-D basket, fearful that giant holographic cheese puffs might return at any moment. He muttered several times, "Oh, Mother, my people really ate those? We were barbarians!" He seemed upset enough that Nitram Ram asked him to sit down on the floor so she could massage his neck while Syvlsng gave a little hiss and said, "both of you, please shut up, I can't hear – holograms of synthetic food can't hurt you."

The show continued – several rather graphic if very obscure jokes involving digressions about molybdenum grease and Michael Schneider, chair of the HIP party, acting as if it really was his own hips that would screw everybody on Earth. This was followed by a silly exploration with three dimensional graphics of an actual idea put forward by a scientist from Oxford about building artificial anodized aluminium (with a stress by the host on the British 'ium' pronunciation) trees to make Earth cities more 'pleasant' and more Pandora like. We all stopped the recording numerous times to discuss the nuances of 22nd century comedic word use and about how differences between American and British pronunciation and accent had remained an issue of parody among Americans for hundreds of years. Another seven minutes of advertisements, during which both Mitch and Linda left the techno-grot visibly disturbed by the images. Us three Na'vi just found them strange and incomprehensible. We did not really understand Mitch and Linda's strong visceral almost allergic reaction to the advertisements. Finally the guests began to arrive on stage.

Miguel Hilmers, the host, walked up very close to the Rabbi and his wife, who were in their avatar bodies, got up on his tip-toes and stared up at them, craning his neck, looking up at their heads over one meter fifty above him and said, " eh, your really not as big as I expected, but excuse me, I am really not used to speaking to my guest's crotches. Could you please sit down." Laura and Dave laughed with the studio audience and obliged by kneeling on the rather comfortable cushions provided for the three Na'vi while Miguel sat in a very tall stool or chair of the sort still called a 'bar stool'. Then Ton'ong came out (Mitch commented that even in 2170 humans did not "make comic references to an ambassador's crotch on 'Tee Veeee' for fear of causing a war") and she sat down rather demurely on her cushion followed by Parker Selfridge who sat on his own bar stool.

"Mr. Chairman", referring to Parker, Miguel Hilmers began, "we all know of your visions and conversion experience during the first month aboard the returning ISV Venture Star back in '54." "Yes I was kind of knocked off my ass, as it were," replied Parker. " And we have all heard the story of the still unexplained failure of two of the ISV's three anti-matter drives and the near failure of the third shortly after and of your emergency return to Pandora," continued Miguel, "But what was your impression of Ton'ong when you met her for the first time when you landed again on Pandora."

"Well, other than the fact that she was an icy calm three meter high painted blue woman who had notched a six foot, poison tipped arrow in a bow with a 150 kg pull aimed directly at my heart as I emerged from the shuttle, she seemed a pleasant enough", said Parker with a bit of a laugh. "Actually, I nearly shit my pants!"

"Tell more", said a suddenly dramatically over-interested Miguel.

"The five of us attending the parley, the ISV captain, the ship's doctor, the two shuttle pilots and myself were in boxer shorts and a tee shirt when we descended for the parlay. We had been ordered to wear these cloths with no pockets, shoes without socks, no hats or helmets except an Exopack and had to prove the shuttle was empty by sending real-time 3D videos of every inch of every compartment after we un-docked from the Venture Star. While taking the videos we were asked in real-time to perform embarrassing actions for the camera by Jake Sully, to prove that the images were not faked."

"For Example?" asked Miguel.

"I had to kiss the Ship's Doctor full on the lips and to profess my eternal romantic love, all while the Captain had to balance a glass of water on his head humming the "Major General" from Gilbert and Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance". We had already been through this sort of dance several days before, when we had to show bona-fide regarding the Venture Star and its damaged condition.

"Jake Sully sounds like he was a very dangerous man, I think I have heard enough," said Miguel. "By the way how was the kiss?"

"When we weren't blown out of the sky immediately, I think I did fall in love with the Doctor, at least for a few minutes. She was rather pretty, and that moment, 'damn beautiful'" said Parker.

"The truth folks, at last, about the secret loves of the former prime minister of the North American Federation," exclaimed Miguel.

"The Na'vi war party that met us, we were out numbered 25 to one, was led by Ton'ong and Norm Spellman in his Avatar body. They were joined by Max Patel, and Herb Gorman the assistant chief engineer of Hell's Gate who had joined the Na'vi side during the war. First they interrogated the Venture Star's Captain for four hours without even a bathroom break, on the condition of the ship." Miguel interrupted, "I assume that Na'vi bladders are proportional to their size?" Parker continued, "Ask David that one. If Ton'ong was terrifying with her bow, she was more so as an interrogator. In the six months since our departure, she had learned a hell of a lot about human technology at Hell's Gate and even more about human psychology. She was no engineer, at least yet, but her questions were to the point and she attacked the slightest hint of inconsistency. If Ton'ong was typical, these 'flea bitten savages who live in trees' were more than our match in cunning, raw intellectual strength and if needed she could be downright mean or sweetly beautiful – good cop/bad cop combined in one three meter feminine body. I would have not wanted to sit across the table from Ton'ong in a game of Texas Hold'em or putt on the same green with her. Of course, on that day we had no shirts to lose. After four hours, we did break for a meal, and they started on the Captain again for five more hours of detailed questioning. The next day it was the Doctor's turn, on the condition of the crew and passengers. Ten hours on the grill for her, yet in two days not one iota of information about whether the Na'vi believed any of our story. The humans seemed to have learned to be as taciturn as the Na'vi, not a 'tell' from any of them in their implacability either."

Miguel turned to Ton'ong, who was dressed quite conservatively in a blue and red bead blouse, and looked at her mild and smiling face, and asked, "You can really be that mean?" She simply answered very quietly, "Yes", and then bared her teeth and hissed and then returned to her mild demeanor.

"The next day was my turn. As I was both the leader and was the one to make our proposal, my experience was different. That morning I was led away from Hell's Gate into the Jungle to the south, without any of my companions. With me were Ton'ong, Payral, Jake Sully, Norm Spellman, again in Avatar form, and Max Patel. We entered a small clearing. Waiting for us were Naytiri and Ma'ot. I was handed to Naytiri and Ma'ot who led me into the Jungle again without the others."

"We stopped in another clearing, I was asked to sit down by Naytiri and the three of us sat in dead silence for at least four hours. I was simply watched. Finally Ma'ot spoke: 'Parkerselfridge, you must prove that you have truly Seen'. I asked, 'How?.' Ma'ot answered, 'Here is a supply of human's food and gourds full of water. This will prevent you from starving for five days. We leave now. In five days, we shall talk.'"

A jaunty jingle started on the recording, the strong voice said "More of the Daily Show after these messages" and seven more minutes of advertisements began. Both Linda and Mitch said' "can we skip over those, please".


	8. Chapter 8 I Love that Putter

**Chapter 8: I Love that Putter**

It has been a long time since my last update. However work as Director of Technical Marketing for a startup can be very time consuming at the end of the year. And there was a question raised in the story that I could not answer – So I continue with Yanef's tales again after too long a break

o0o

"What is with you two about ads?" queried a mildly irritated Syvlang. "I find them rather incomprehensible, like silly dreams, but they seem harmless. They are just 1000 year old relics"

"They're just painful," answered Mitch. "Even after 1000 years, these ads still have their effects. They were meant to produce a subtle or not so subtle psychic discomfort using dream-like images, and then associate relief of that discomfort with trading for the object advertised. Pretty demonic."

"You humans always were such superstitious wussus," answered Syvlang."

"Ok, we'll skip the ads", I said. Syvlang and Nitram Ram hooted a bit in complaint, thus succeeding in irritating Mitch just a bit more.

The Daily Show's 'voice' started again – "Now Back to Miguel Hilmers, and his guests in this extended edition of the Daily Show."

Parker Selfridge continued his tale, "Naytiri, in silence, reached behind a fallen tree trunk and bent down and with the grace of dancer picked up my putter, and a single golf ball and threw them in a high arc so both landed right at my feet. Then they both turned their back on me and exited the clearing."

Miguel cut in, "So there you were in your skivvies, sockless in a pair of old tennis shoes, wearing an exo-pack with a Callahan putter and a regulation Titlest golf ball on Pandora, alone."

"Yes, as night fell. Both the stars, Alpha Centauri A and B, had set, and Polyphemus was right on the horizon."

Miguel interrupted again, "I have heard that you once said 'I love this putter'. I guess it is good to be with one's true love at night? And some find a Pandoran night very romantic."

Parker continued, "I began to laugh. Except that I was about to be eaten, my situation really was rather ridiculous. Perhaps there was a way to defend myself against a thanator with the putter and that was what I was supposed to 'See'. The bastards didn't even leave me with a knife."

Ton'ong, laughed, "Parker, Weeellll, Naytiri had proposed leaving you with a very small knife, perhaps so you could slit you own wrists but Max suggested the putter and ball instead. We all thought that was a much better idea."

"That Parker Selfridge would be able to slit his wrists with a putting iron?," said Miguel looking quizzically at Ton'ong. "Pandora must truly be a magical place."

Selfridge continued as we watched the ancient recording in silence, "I stayed up, alert to every sound. Expecting an attack from 'something', a thantor, a viper wolf pack, or poisonous bugs, a carnivorous plant? As twilight ended and the darkness grew, the plants lit up as the jungle noises increased. With each noise I would jump up, pointing the putter in the direction of the sound. Soon I was spinning about in breathless terror, while a band of small four armed monkeys sat just a few meters above me, chattering, eating fruit, picking nits off each other and seemingly enjoying the show. With each of my yells the light spots on the monkeys faces would light up for a second. I don't believe with fear but glee. I became convinced that they were there to lap up my blood once something bigger killed me; maybe their calls were guides to that waiting monster. I tried to scare them off, which only increased their chatter and gleeful light show as they calmly picked their nits."

"After an eternity, the first smaller sun rose, yet the noises continued. Soon the bugs arrived. I knew the . . ." scrizz, scrizz…popp."a thanator …", Grrzzz, pop, pop grrzzz "several large . . . ". Pop ….. The basket of the Tri-V filled with 3D static,

"What the fuck", yelled Mitch as we missed about five minutes of the nearly thousand year-old recording.

"Przzz … pop …. " exhausted, no sleep for three days, I fell asleep. And as I awoke … prizz .. pop . . . who was I to think that just because I had a vision on a starship I was something . . .pop . . . grzzz . . . a sun again rose and I just sat and watched . pop . . fzzz. . a cross between a giant dandelion seed and a jellyfish drifted down, then two more, touched my hands and then they floated up .grzz. grzz. . . time the monkeys came close while I was sleeping and as I woke up one had left me a fruit as a gift. .pop . . . if I was to be eaten by something at least I was well fed . .grzz pop … as the smaller sun set and the larger reached the noon and I sat on the ground watching those two stars, Ma'ot, Netyiri, Ton'ong and Jake Sully finally appeared, entering my clearing, each from a different direction. They came together, standing in front of me as I continued to sit calmly, and then I stood up and, to this day I do not know why, I bowed and handed Ton'ong my putter and the golf ball that Naytiri had thrown to me five days before."

"The five of us sat down in silence, as the small sun set, and the larger moved across the sky. I finally said . . . 'In high school Mr. McGruder, our 11th grade English teacher had us read Wolfram von Eschenbach's _Parzival. _I did not understand it. Ton'ong, Jake, Naytiri, Ma'ot, may I have permission to ask you, "What ails you?". It seems years ago, though it is only months, at Hell's Gate I asked "what do the Na'vi need from us?" and I assumed and said "nothing," and we lost a war. Now I will ask you, "what ails you?"'"

"We were all silent, I know not how long" as Parker Selfridge continued. "Then Ma'ot finally spoke, 'Parkerselfridge, The Na'vi are changing. The Sky People have left but we Na'vi, all Pandora, shall never be the same. I hear it in the wind, taste it in the water, and see it in the _tanhi _[bioluminescent spots] of our clan's, of all the clans', _ay'eveng _[children]. I See the change in the Dances and hear the change in the Songs. Perhaps Eywa herself is changed forever by what has happened.' "

The recording continued and as Parker Selfridge continued speaking, all in the studio on the stage and in the audience were also silent. "Then Naytiri spoke, 'I am the life mate, bonded forever before Eywa, of one who is both Sky Person and Na'vi and I have Seen and touched his Sky Person's soul and I tell you, Parker, that we need, that I need, help so that the pains and horrors of being a Human, a Sky Person do not descend upon us Na'vi ourselves as we change.' Then as I sat, Ton'ong looked down at me and spoke, 'After I first met Rabbi Dav'id and Laura by your Hell's Gate fence, I remember I called that fence a metal vine to my mother, I started dreaming of the Stars, of journeying to the Stars, and of being so close to Stars that I would See the stars so as to join them in _tsaheylu_. These dreams are such wonders of joy and they hurt so much'"

Parker Selfridge concluded his story, " Jake Sully stood up and offered me his hand to help me up and said, 'Parker, we have much to talk about, but you need to rest now. I will take you back to your people and we shall meet at my home tomorrow'".

As the five of us watched the ancient Tri-v recording, the camera had pulled back to show the entire stage, with Parker Selfridge, Ton'ong, Miguel Hillmers, and Laura and David Rosenbaum all sitting in silence. The five of us were stunned to see that Laura and David we looking at each other, holding hands and had, sometime during Parker Selfridge' tale quietly joined their queues of their Avatar bodies, their living tzitzit, in _tsaheylu._


	9. Chapter 9  Combing Hair

_It has been a very long time since my last update – but it was not until today that how to move the story forward became clear._

_I thank all who read this for their patience - DurWi_

The next morning my three students, Linda and myself were talking after breakfast. "I wonder why Laura and David were in _tsaheylu, _in public?" questioned Laura. "Did the audience know what it meant?"

Mitch, whose demeanor was no longer that of the clown but who was standing on a branch leisurely braiding Nitram Ram's hair, gently and with skill rewrapping the braids covering her queue while she kneeled on another branch slightly below him, replied. "I think they were making a point. But what was the point and to whom? Certainly Ton'ong and even Selfridge would clearly have known precisely what they were doing and many, maybe all, of the audience, as by the 2174 much more was known by Humans about the Na'vi and their lives. Human popular culture was fascinated by the concept of _tsaheylu_ especially with respect to its erotic quality. To have done what they did was to I think to have been intentionally provocative, extremely provocative. Yanef, do you know if there is any extent contemporary commentary on this show?" I replied, " None survives that I am aware of?"

Mitch continued, "The fascination was often tinged with much pain and jealousy, even anger. After all, here was a species, in the Na'vi, who knew during making love the answer to the question from their partner 'do you truly love me'. Laura and David had to be consciously playing with that particular human pain and showing off that they as Dreamwalkers could experience that specific Navi gift of the joy of _tsaheylu_. Why?"

Linda answered, "I wonder if they were guided to do it by Gaia? To provoke the very dissonance in the audience that you were speaking of. Unless there were some watchers who would see their action in the context of the story of Selfridge's visions as a statement 'yes you Humans too can experience _tsaheylu', _their action would have been cruel and pure arrogance. "

Nitram Ram replied, "Although we have no contemporary mention of this episode of Daily Show, we do know that HIP partisans rioted in Ottawa in early August 2172 and attacked the Na'vi embassy. The records are fragmentary but the rallying cry of the rioters was recorded as 'we are individuals, we are free,' I wonder if the show we just saw was far more provocative than the records that we have indicate?

Syvlang, who was now kneeling behind Mitch and combing and decorating his blond hair while Mitch continued his attentions to Nitram Ram's, "That phrase was also the HIP battle cry in the Second War, 35 years latter. Why would David and Laura do what they did? Were they just showing off, carried away in romantic memories evoked by Selfridge's story or is Linda right and their was some audience that was supposed to get a particular message. Conventional views are that the Guild of Divine Connection did not form until at least 2183. Were there in fact GDC lodges active in North America as early as June 2172 and Laura and David's 'stunt' was a message to secret members of the GDC, or at least to some group that became the nucleus of that secret society? Yet we have no indication that Laura and David Rosenbaum were in involved with the GDC, even after 2183."

I spoke as Linda, sitting with her legs dangling down on the branch slightly above my waist, began to work on gently on dressing my hair, undoing and redoing my braids as the cool morning breezes blew through the tree, "I believe that Laura and David Rosenbaum and Parker Selfridge may have been among the founders of the GDC. That it was founded around 2170 not 2182. It is mostly just a hunch, a vision, as I have so little hard evidence; this fragment of a Tri-vid with that strange public _tsaheylu _is the strongest I have found so far_. _Also, the first use in a published writing, in a New Yorker article in 2171, of the term 'tzitzit' for neural queue, the Na'vis' _tswin _is curious. I believe whoever wrote that essay knew Laura and David, as the essay made references that accurately parallel both Laura and David's diaries yet those were, as far as we know never published.

Linda said, "Yanef, you are so tricky! Yesterday you tell a seemingly sweet and inconsequential story about the meeting of an 'evang and two adult Humans to explain how a single word enters our Common Speech while we collect the vision mushrooms. Today you tie that story to not only a _causus belli _for the Second War, but the birth of the GDC, of the Co-Benedictines, and the roots of the Great Reimaging of Human and Na'vi. And you claim a key event may have occurred during a comedy broadcast! Do you dare publish this? Perhaps you are joking?"

Relaxing with a delicious sigh as Linda, undid the braid covering my _tswin_ and _tzitzit_, and she began to slowly and carefully comb out the long hair and rearrange my braid, I said, "Not yet. The key would be to find out exactly what Jake Sully and Selfridge spoke of on Pandora after Parker's ordeal and vision but no records were kept. Parker, even though he seems a bit of a braggart, never, as far a we know, spoke of any details of that conversation nor did Jake Sully. The others who may have been present either kept their silence too, or the records have been lost. There are many Songs about the _Speech of the Two Species_ sung on all Six Systems, but these poems are all over the place and create no pattern which points to a common truth and many are from centuries later and are full of anachronisms and prolepsis. Without that record, I search for subtler hints. But I am certain that one of the seeds of the Great Reimaging was the meeting of David and Laura with Ton'ong. While no one would dispute Parker's 'unexpected' return to Pandora as another of the seeds.

At that point we all quieted, paying attention solely to the pleasure of grooming each other's hair and the '_little_ or _lesser tsaheylu'_ of our mutually shared silent thoughts, the feeling and our touch as the Sun rose higher in the Martian sky.


	10. Chapter 10  The Loving Stars

One of the benefits of writing for you, my imaginary friends from a long lost Earth, is that I can indulge in discursive and explanatory side tracks that in a quality piece of writing from your time would have been excised by an editor with a stern red-pencil 'tell a story, don't explain, damn it!'. Of course, Linda, Mitch, Nitram Ram, and Syvlang are familiar with the _lesser tsaheylu_, the _tsaheylutsyìp _and us entering that lovely trance together would call for no special comment_. _Both Humans and Na'vi enter _tsaheylutsyìp si _with dearest friends of both sexes and both species regularly and we do so from childhood.

These closest of friends, and close family members are _lenikre ayeylan, _one's grooming partners or _hair friends_, those who one would trust with all but the very most intimate of emotions and whose death is like a wound to part of one's own soul. To become _lenikre 'eylan _is never offered or accepted lightly as the bond is strong, sometimes shattering, and life-long, though not as strong as the _great_ _tsaheylu _made with one's life mate, ones mother, a Na'vi's with an irkan, a Human's bond to one's familiar animal or that of a Go-captain's bound to the Live-ship. To enter _tsaheylutsyìp si_ is always erotic, in that Eros allows one to See the Other fully reflected in oneself, but it is never sexual among Na'vi and only occasionally among Humans.

The full network all _lenikre ayeylan _span the Six Systems in networks of love and shared joys and pains than link most all Na'vi and Humans. That some of my 23 _lenikre ayeylan _are also those of others and so on and on creates entwined tendrils of connection that hold our society and lives together. The twentieth century wit who created 'six-degrees of separation' could not imagine the effect of _tsaheylutsyìp_, where the connections with my loved _lenikre 'eylan _contain echos, of course very much attenuated, of the souls of most all Na'vi and Humans.

To have no _lenikre 'eylan_ at all is to both Human and Na'vi one of the most serious of pathologies and when a small group of hair friends has no connections at all outside of a particular small and inbred group those people become solipsistic and prone to selfishness, a society among themselves. Thus, we do have our criminal mafias, small and secretive gangs, outcast tribelets, who hold themselves apart as islands who See no one except themselves, and thus See nothing at all.

As the morning lengthened, each of us began the day's responsibilities. Mitch and Nitram Ram were assisting in enhancing Pandora-forming of a plateau about 150 km north of our Tree, while Syvlang, Linda, and myself felt a day assisting the cooks would be both useful and would allow for continued discussion and debate. Mitch and Nitram Ram were to fly together on Nitram Ram's irkan, Luthien (Nitram Ram is my student after all) to their worksite while our 'commute' involved a climb down and gathering some knives for some serious vegetable chopping.

After 15 or so minutes cutting in attentive silence, Syvlang spoke as we and the cooks and their other helpers listened, "Na'vi communities of Jakesully's time were quite closely tied together across such long distances. Being aviators, a young Na'vi _irkan makto_, such as Natyiri might have a couple of _lenikre ayeylan _in clans as far away as 600 km from her clan's home. An elder might have a ring of hair friends that could span a continent or even farther. One of the privileges and pleasures of gaining one's wings was and still is the ability to visit allied clans across a wide radius and make ones own friends and _lenikre ayeylan_.

Being in _tsaheylu si_ with ones irkan and flying as high as 5,000 meters also made for a very personal view of the vastness of the moon and her place in a larger cosmos. In exploring the relationship of language and community among the ancient Na'vi I have come across a transcript of Natyiritelling Norm Spellman about Grace Augustine and Rabbi Rosenbaum's attempt to teach Na'vi about the vast human knowledge of the vast cosmos in the early days of the school. I think the 20th century word for their attitude was 'imperial', and I think the _ayevang_ "gave a finger to the 'man' " quite adequately if sweetly in return. This is how Natyiri told the story to Norm in English. This must have been from several years after the war because her English has become so good."

"_Norm, there was this one day, when Toctorgrace and Rabbidav'it were teaching. They brought in this, this 'u, this 'contraption' of circles of wires and paper and they were so, so nitram, so happy with themselves, so proud as they tied it to the roof of the school-room. Toctorgrace said in Na'vi, 'Children, do you know what this is?' She did not expect us to answer or maybe to guess and we looked at her at, Rabbidav'it and then at each other."_

"_Ma Jake laughed when I told him this story, 'I know that game! She expected you all to sit there like slack jawed boot camp recruit idiots, and say 'duh' and 'no Sargeant, what is it?' Then the DI could make you 'boots' look like idiots with all she knew and you didn't'". _

"_We were silent for a few seconds and just as the Toctor was about to open her mouth, __Sylwanin looked at the balls and circles, then at Ninat, who looked at Tsu'tse, who looked at me. Then Sylwanin began to sing, as Nanit joined her, and all us others began to dance the__ way __Eywa__yä peyä yatsmukan ulte yatsmuke,__ Eywa's Song of her Brothers and Sisters __which was about the one-eyed old Father, and his eleven children who dance around him, and how their shadows fall on him and are cast by Great-Grandmother Big Sun. How the Old Father's wife and sister, Sister-Wife Little Sun are in love but kept apart. How Eywa and her Brothers and Sisters dance around their Father, and Old Father dances with his Brothers and Sisters forever and ever around Great-Grandmother Sun, and Grandmother Little Sun are holding hands with arms so long and spinning forever about each other. How the stars are so, so far away and send their love on this Forever Dance and on us Na'vi. Then this Song, Norm you taught me this word and I like it, segued into the Song of the First Toruk Makto who circled all of Ewya's body and returned and she how she sang to the Na'vi on all five of the great lands and the many little islands in the Sea and we all danced in circles and all sang in that school-room. And it was Toctor Grace and Rabbidav'it who dropped their jaws and were silent until even they tried to join our Song"._

"_Norm, Doctorgrace, she was one who knew so much and so little. But she had never flown holding onto her own mother's back along with her sister, on the huge Irkan, as a very very little girl. Flying so high, so high above the mountains as the air got thin and cold and the Irkan could go no higher. The edge, the . . . , the horizon became a curve, and then my mother began to sing that Way, the Song I just spoke about as the Grandmother set, and Sister Sun Set, and the Old Father set and the Stars shone in their love and we greeted three of Eywa's sisters as we flew in the night in glow of the stars and glow of Eywa's body below for hours as my mother sang that Way to us, to her irkan, to the Stars, which were oh so far away."_

"_Norm, there was no way for the Toctor or the Rabbi to know, yet that silly 'contraption', that 'u, of paper and wire showed that in some dumb human way, they did."_

Syvlang finished her story and Linda asked. "When was this transcript first sent to Earth?" "I am not sure, but I believe it was discovered at Hell's Gate only recently, why do you ask?" Syvlang answered.

"Because Father Diego Rodrigues, founder of the Co-Benedictines wrote as early 2180 about how the Na'vi had to know their moon circled Polyphemus and Polyphemus circled their sun. He was writing about the nature of Na'vi _tsaheylu_ and its relation to human intuitive knowledge and understanding of the wisdom of divine Christ. Perhaps Grace Augstine had written about that day in the School. If so that writing or Tri-V has been lost," said Linda.


End file.
